Welcome to Your Virtual History Classroom!

NOTE: Please do NOT click 'EDIT' at any stage unless your teacher instructs you too as you may lose content for everyone else in the classes.

Introduction and Course Overview

The 20th century was a century of social change. World war and continuing industrialisation, in particular, highlighted the inequalities that existed around the world. The Holocaust was such an extreme example of discrimination and persecution that the horror of this event prompted many individuals around the world to stand up and demand freedom and equal rights for all. The United Nations formed out of the ashes of World War II and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted

What Will We Study?

Aboriginal Australians have lived in Australia for at least 40 000 years.The arrival of Europeans in 1788 resulted in significant changes to traditional Aboriginal customs and ways of life. Until 1901, colonial governments and communities formally and informally discriminated against Aboriginal people. Federation in 1901 made the exclusion of Aboriginal people even more pronounced. By 1938 – the 150th anniversary of the settlement of Australia by the British – an organised Aboriginal rights movement had been established. The civil rights movement in the United States proved influential for Indigenous activists in the 1960s. By the 1990s, the reconciliation movement was in full swing, culminating in a national walk for reconciliation in 2000. But itwould not be until the Rudd Government in 2008 that the formal apology the Stolen Generations sought would finally be delivered.

In this Australian Curriculum 10 History unit of work, students will investigate struggles for human rights. This covers how rights and freedoms have been ignored, demanded or achieved in Australia and in the broader world context (Carrodus 2012).